


You Don't Wanna Know

by psychotic_hamster



Category: All New X-Men (Comics), X-Force (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Angst, Apocalypse, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Feels, Gen, Guilt, Insomnia, Logan just wants the original x-men to go home, Missing Scene, Warren just wants to go home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 17:32:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16454315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychotic_hamster/pseuds/psychotic_hamster
Summary: Set just after All-New X-Men #8. This is a missing scene where Warren is determined to find out what happened to his older self. He can't get over how the older Angel has absolutely no memories of being him. Something really bad happened, he's sure of it, so he confronts Jean, knowing she's found out the truth. Unfortunately, all she can tell him is that he needs to ask a certain grumpy, super-scary headmaster.Logan is not the kind of person to divulge all his secrets. Especially not when thinking on them only fills him with guilt and shame.





	You Don't Wanna Know

**Author's Note:**

> It helps reading this if you know the events of X-Force: The Dark Angel Saga, but I like to think it works even if you haven't read it. 
> 
> I really enjoyed the first few volumes of All-New X-Men. The plot-line was ridiculous, but when isn't an X-Men plot-line ridiculous? And besides, Logan dealing with an unruly young Scott was just delicious. And I just gotta say, I thought Young Warren was so damn adorable, and I felt so sorry for him when Jean just mind-raped him into wanting to stay. I reckon that effect didn't last long, and this scene helps bring closure to an issue I think they left hanging wide open.

Warren Worthington was really fed up. So fed up, in fact, that he couldn't remember ever being in a darker mood. He had so much rage bubbling beneath the surface; so much rage that he didn't know he was capable of.

He, Jean, Scott, Bobby and Hank had been in the future for over a week now, with no sign of returning home, and still no explanation for what had happened to his future self. Earlier today he had met the man he became, and it had been like staring into a funhouse mirror. In a way what he had seen was him, but the image was so warped and distorted that they just couldn't have been one in the same. He knew something terrible had happened to make him that way, he felt it in his gut. His future self didn't even think they were the same person; what about that wasn't messed up? And still, no one cared to tell him the truth.

After meeting his future self, Warren had freaked and tried to return home, but Jean had stopped him. Gone into his head and changed how he felt about the whole fucked up situation like flicking off a switch. Except the relaxation she'd instilled in him hadn't lasted, and now he was stood outside her door, long after everyone should be asleep, fists clenching and unclenching, entirely unsure of what to do.

He supposed he should flip out at her for fucking with his head; he certainly didn't forgive her for it, and it made him so angry that she could make him give in so easily. But where would it get him if he did? She'd probably just do the same thing to him all over again, and she wasn't even in full control of her new powers, she might even end up turning him into a vegetable. No, railing at her wasn't going to do any good, and neither was trying to run away. What he needed was to find out what had really happened to his future self, and to do that he would have to play his cards right. He wasn't getting what he wanted just by demanding it, so he'd have to be more underhand about the whole thing. He just wish he knew how to go about it.

 _Are you going to stand there all night?_ he heard Jean say, making him jump out of his skin. He looked up and down the hall anxiously, although he didn't know why, it was dark and empty; the way it had been for the last five minutes.

 _Come in._ There was a difference to hearing Jean's voice in his head, rather than out loud, but it was subtle, and definitely not something he was used to yet. Still, he reached for the handle and opened the door. Inside it was darker than the hallway and he couldn't make out much, apart from where the bed was, and that Jean was sat up in the middle of it.

_Can you turn the light on, please?_

Warren did as instructed, and closed the door behind him. Still, he kept his distance as much as possible. Hearing Jean's voice like this made his mind recoil.

"Get out of my head," he demanded, doing his best to keep cool.

"I'm sorry," Jean said softly. "I just didn't want to wake anyone else up."

Warren glared at her; it was a poor excuse. He knew, perhaps better than herself that she was just revelling in her newfound powers, trying them out for size in any way she saw fit, forgetting how everyone else might feel about it. How he felt about it.

Sat with her arms wrapped around her brought up knees, red hair slightly dishevelled and looking at him with those big, innocent green eyes, Jean looked like a typical, harmless teenage girl. She still looked like the girl he thought he might have been falling in love with, but she wasn't anymore. Now, she just scared him.

"Jean, what you did to me-"

"I'm sorry, OK? I just thought it was the best thing to do at the time. You were losing it around very dangerous equipment. I couldn't risk... we couldn't risk... I'm sorry, but you have to accept that I had your best interests at heart," Jean said softly. Warren was certain she was just trying to pacify him, she could probably see the way his fists were clenching. But she wasn't going to get off that lightly.

"No, Jean, you had _your_ best interests at heart," he pointed at her, trying incredibly hard to keep his voice down and his anger in check. " What you did was just selfish. _I_ want to leave, you know I do. It's _all_ I want to do."

"I'm sorry, but we can't leave. Not just yet."

"Why?" Warren seethed, the restraint on his volume slipping. Jean winced, but it wasn't entirely because he was in danger of waking everyone up. She had a pained look in her eyes, one that made her look twenty years older, yet so young and fragile all at the same time. She looked like she knew something terrible, and he was sure it had something to do with what she'd read from the future X-Men. Maybe she had learnt something about him. "What aren't you telling me?" he asked a little weaker, and a whole lot quieter.

Jean's gaze dropped to her fingers, which coiled in the material of her pyjama bottoms. "Nothing," she mumbled, and shifted in the bed to hang her legs over the edge opposite to Warren, her back conveniently turned.

Warren swallowed back his discomfort and stepped forward into the room. He wasn't going to allow her to pout her way out of this. He was going to get the truth, whether she wanted to give it to him or not.

"You know something about what happens to me," he said, walking around the bed to grab hold of her attention again. "Why won't you just tell me?"

Jean looked up at him and tears rolled down her face, making him halt uncertainly at the foot of the bed. As much as he hated her right now, he felt awful for making her cry. But he didn't know what to do about it; he didn't exactly feel like comforting her. Besides, he didn't know the first thing about comforting girls when they were crying.

"Because," her voice wavered and she had to heave a cleansing sigh before continuing. "Because finding out doesn't make you feel any better, take it from me. I wish I could forget all the memories I got from the older Hank, but I can't." A few more tears rolled down Jean's face and she turned away whilst wiping her cheeks dry.

Warren's fists unclenched; he couldn't be angry with her like this, but if she knew something about his future, about how he'd become this stranger, he couldn't let that go.

"Share them with me," he said, desperately kneeling next to her, forcing his face into her eye line. "At least then you don't have to shoulder the burden all by yourself." At least then he would get the truth.

 Jean looked at him, a little hopeful, a little lost, but still woefully distraught. Her eyes seemed to scan over his face, so he doctored his expression to be one of concern and compassion. He needed this information so badly he was happy to know all the other shit that had happened to them; he was happy to pretend he was interested in knowing the whole lot.  

Jean blinked some remaining tears out of her eyes and her mouth stretched into a grimacing sort of a smile, then shook her head. "Hank doesn't know what happened to you, not the full story anyway. If you wanted that you'd have to ask Logan."

Warren's eye twitched. That was hardly the response he was hoping for. The burly, bad-tempered and genuinely quite frightening headmaster was the last person he wanted to talk to about his future. He didn't know why, but he found something about the man so unsettling. That and he was just about the most abrasive individual Warren had ever met. "Why him?" he asked, almost as a whisper to himself.

However, Jean picked up on it and replied. "I don't know, it all happened when... I wasn't around. I didn't get much from Hank - there was so much to take in - but it might help if you asked about something called a Life Seed."

Warren frowned. "What the hell is a Life Seed?"

"I don't know, but whatever it is, I think that's what changed you," Jean said, wiping once more at her cheeks. She seemed to have reined in the tears for now. "I'm sorry I can't give you more, but I can't go into anyone else's head like that again. I don't have it in me, Warren."

"That's fine," Warren said, standing up and feeling a wave of confidence rush over him. "If Logan knows something I'll just have to make him tell me."

"He's awake," Jean said suddenly, her voice sounding distant. Warren frowned at her and the distant expression on her face sent a bolt of uneasiness straight through his confidence. He realised she had to be using her telepathy, and while he had gotten used to the idea of it through Professor Xavier, seeing Jean use it so effortlessly made his skin crawl. How could she have gotten so good so quick? "He's using the bathroom on the fourth floor."

"Thanks," Warren said, suddenly eager to get away, he left the room without excusing himself and shut the door behind. He set off down the hallway with purpose, but upon reaching the staircase to the fourth floor stopped dead in his tracks.

What was he doing? Was he really so sure that he wanted to know what was going to happen to him? Jean had been in tears over what she had seen in Future-Hank's mind, and Warren could count the amount of times he'd seen Jean cry on one hand.

But all the same, this mystery was maddening. All of the future X-Men looked at him in such an awkward sympathetic way and if he was going to be staying here any longer he had to know why. At least then he might be able to get them to stop.

He found the confidence to walk up the stairs, where, once at the top, he could see the glow of a light from underneath one of the doors. Assuming that was the door he wanted, Warren steeled himself and went to wait outside.

*** *** *** *** ***

Logan was used to not being able to sleep. Between recurring nightmares and the vast inventory of things he had to feel guilty about, he was surprised he didn't suffer from insomnia more frequently, or constantly, for that matter. But he'd been slipping into habits of sleeplessness ever since the original X-Men had turned up. He hadn't quite decided what kind of threat they posed, but he knew their extended stay wasn't a good thing and entertaining all the disastrous possibilities had him tossing and turning relentlessly.

Tonight, he had read through an entire crime noir novel trying to get to sleep. Admittedly it had been a rather short one, only a couple of hundred pages, but after reaching the end he felt no more tired than he had when he started. So rather than lie in bed staring at the ceiling, he had decided to get up and use the bathroom. He hadn't really needed to go, but it was something to do.

As he finished off and moved his hand to flush the toilet, Logan picked up on a fresh scent and recognised it instantly. Warren Worthington. The young one. And by the strength of it, the boy was right outside the door.

Logan sighed with a grimace and pushed the flush handle down, filling the small bathroom with the sound of crashing water. He laboured longer than he usually did over washing his hands, wondering what exactly had the young Angel out of his bed at this hour. He hoped against hope that the boy had just needed the loo, got a bit lost and ended up the floor above his own, but it was foolish to think anything was ever as simple as that. Nothing about the original five being here was simple.

Turning off the tap and wiping his hands dry on his grey tracksuit bottoms, Logan stared at his reflection in the mirror above the sink. The face that looked back wore a dark scowl and needed a shave. Underneath the thick furrowed brow, sharp blue eyes watched him loathingly and he remembered why he normally avoided looking in mirrors: because he always hated what he saw.

His eyes darted to the bathroom window, vaguely entertaining the thought of leaving through it, rather than face the boy on the other side of the door. However, only a small panel at the top actually opened and it wouldn't be big enough for him to squeeze through. Breaking the glass would be a bit excessive, so he supposed he would have to face the music and find out why the boy just so happened to be waiting for him outside. 

He slid back the lock on the door and opened it. Sure enough, right opposite him was the blonde pretty-boy, his huge white wings standing out brilliantly as the bathroom light spilled into the hallway. He had a stern expression on his baby face that Logan had seen countless times before, albeit on the older version - the version that he had failed to save.

"What's a Life Seed?" the young Warren demanded.

Logan damn well near choked. "What?" he asked, trying very hard to play it cool, even though his heart had just plummeted to his stomach.

"A Life Seed. Jean told me it has something to do with what happens to me in the future, and that you were the person to ask," Young Warren glared at him, but Logan could both see and smell how nervous he was. The boy had a crazy amount of adrenaline pumping through his system, and Logan was sure his pale little fists were clenched to keep them from shaking. It was obvious that he had plucked up a great deal of courage to come and ask him this, but Logan didn't really care.

"She shouldn't'a done that," he grumbled and turned to go back to his room. His path was abruptly blocked by a wall of feathers and he stopped to glare at the obstruction's owner.

"I'm not letting you go until you tell me what happened to me. I have a right to know," Warren said firmly.

Logan's gut clenched along with his jaw. This kid may have been nervous, but he had some serious balls on him to pull a stunt like this. Logan couldn't decide whether he was more pissed off or more anxious to just get away. He sure as hell didn't want to broach the topic of what had happened to the older Warren Worthington, not when he couldn't even fully explain it to his closest friends, let alone to the boy version of the very man he had failed. 

"Happens," he grunted. "What _happens_ to you. It's not gonna happen for a long time, and if you kids stay here any longer maybe it never will. So, no, y'don't have a right to know." He pushed Warren's wing out of the way with some difficultly and stomped back towards his bedroom.

"Yes I do," the boy said stubbornly and gave chase.

"Go back to bed," Logan ordered, not breaking his gait. His bedroom door was within sight and he was determined to put it between him and Young Warren.

"No!" the kid protested, raising his voice. He tried to grab at Logan's arm but lost the grip before he really had anything to tighten around. Logan scowled and rounded on him, taking a menacing step forward to put his face inches from that perfect, pretty, little visage.

"Keep your voice down. There are other people trying to sleep," he growled.

Young Warren looked positively terrified for a moment, before plastering over it with false bravado. "Tell me what a Life Seed is," he said, quieter this time but no less obstinate.

Logan snarled. "Go to bed." He attempted to escape once more, but heard footsteps follow in his wake. He sped up the last few steps to his room. The door was ajar from when he'd left it, so he got in quick, grabbed the handle on the other side and spun to slam the door shut in Young Warren's face. He wasn't quite fast enough and the boy managed to wedge himself in the gap, getting the whole right side of him trapped. He winced and fought to push it open all the way, but Logan pushed back and they quickly found an equilibrium.

Logan sighed irritably. He knew he was more likely to win this power struggle, what with his adamantium skeleton and the fact that Young Warren had a good few inches left to grow and a lot of muscle yet to build. But he didn't want to force it too much, if he did he would probably break the boy's nose and then he would never hear the end of it. Still, he wasn't about to let him in either.

"Move back," he said through gritted teeth.

Warren attempted to wriggle himself further into the room; he didn't achieve much, and so fixed Logan with his baby blues and pleaded, "You have to tell me. This is driving me mad!"

Logan flinched, a sensation of guilt buried itself deep under his ribcage like a hot poker. He tried very hard not to think about the older Warren, the one who actually had been driven mad by the demon inside him; the demon that Logan had brought out. It was difficult not to, and Young Warren used the opportunity to worm his way in a little more, getting through the edge of one of his wings before Logan could regain his composure and throw his weight back onto the door.

"You don't move an' I'll be crushing that pretty little face of yours," he growled and shuffled his foot forward to force the door shut by an extra inch.

"Please," Young Warren groaned. Logan could tell this was starting to hurt him, but he couldn't care about that. A little bit of pain on the boy's part was far better than the alternative. "Let." Young Warren made one final bid to force the door open. "Me." He started to flex back his wing and the door creaked with the force. "In!" For all his three-hundred-pound weight, Logan had nothing against the muscles that could lift an almost fully-grown man into the air. He was sent reeling backwards. The back of his knees hit the corner of the bed, forcing him to sit. However, he bounced right off the edge, spun in the air and landed on his face. Pain shot through his nose and cheek and various other places in more minor degrees.

"Oh my God, are you alright? I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-"

Logan cut him off with a long groan. "Shut. Up," he said, voice muffled into the carpet. The boy was being far too loud and having everyone wake up to find him decked out by one of these weedy little X-Kids was the last thing Logan needed.

"Sorry," Young Warren repeated in a whisper.

Grumbling to himself, Logan brought his left arm parallel with his face to push up and roll his back up against the edge of the bed. His nose was throbbing so fierce that despite knowing his healing factor was well on its way to fixing the problem, Logan pinched it tightly and tilted his head back. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a nose bleed, and when he had it had probably been brought on by something far more sinister, such as a psychic attack, but damn if it didn't feel like his nose was about to start gushing forth.

"Are you OK?" Young Warren stepped forward hesitantly into Logan's range of vision.

"Be fine," he grunted. "Shut the damn door if you're gonna stay."

Young Warren was all too quick to comply; the door was shut and the light was on before Logan could even comfortably tilt his head back down and give his nose a testing prod to either side. There was no danger of any blood it seemed, which was good, even if just for the boy's conscience.

"So, are you going to tell me?" he approached again, this time cautiously hopeful.

Logan looked the boy over. He couldn't be in starker contrast to the older Warren he had known. There were none of the haggard lines on that perfectly smooth face of his, no cold hard look in his eyes, no malicious sneer on his lips. X-force had changed Warren for the worse and Logan had done nothing to stop it. The furthest he'd gone was to run training drills so that they were ready to take him out when he inevitably transformed into Archangel, and even those hadn't been enough.

If anything, the boy stood over him reflected his current self better. The Angel that was no longer Warren. Compassionate, caring; all that had been good in Warren before was in Angel now. So hadn't things turned out for the best? Couldn't they just forget Archangel, sweep everything about him under the rug and start over? He had to at least try to keep that history a secret, for Warren's sake.

"No," Logan answered bluntly. He decided it wasn't just cowardice that made him want to keep this from Young Warren, he also had to protect the boy from knowing too much.

Warren blinked, apparently both disappointed and a little hurt. "Please!" he whined. "This is torture! I can understand why everyone treats Scott like the plague, if he's going to kill Professor Xavier, but the way you all look at me... I know something terrible happened, and I swear not knowing is worse than anything you could tell me."

"You may think that, but you're wrong," Logan said, staring him down. Regaining the memories to his own chequered past had proved that knowing all the answers didn't bring relief. If anything they just made it worse. "Believe me when I say I know where you're coming from better than most, and trust me, right now, the best thing for you to do is to drop it."  

Warren shook his head. "I can't."

Logan sighed and looked across at his bedside dresser. There was a bottle of whiskey on it that looked awfully tempting. Unfortunately, it was the good stuff and he didn't want to waste it on feeling this crappy. Thinking about it, the bottle had lived longer than any other in his possession. It had been nearly stolen by the Bamfs at one point, but after an explicit threat to life and limb, they had learnt to leave it be. So instead, it just sat there, gathering dust and waiting for the day that Logan was in a good enough mood to open it.

"Can't you at least tell me what a Life Seed is? Surely you wouldn't be giving it all away if you did that," Warren persisted.

Logan barked a short, sardonic laugh. "Sure, it's the opposite to a Death Seed."

"What's a Death Seed?" Young Warren rubbed at his forehead in exasperation.

Logan gave him a heavy look, but didn't say anything. He wasn't about to give the boy any more clues. If anything he had already said too much.

"Fine," Young Warren threw his hands up. "This is a school, right? So it must have a library, and a library in a mutant school has got to have information on mutant history. I'll just find out for myself."

He stomped over to the door, but stopped short of leaving and turned back. There was vulnerability written all over his face, though he tried to hide it. "Unless you'd rather I heard it from you, seeing as you apparently have something to do with what happened."

Logan kept up with his poker face, trying hard to ignore the fact that by saying nothing he was actually speaking volumes.

"Right," Young Warren huffed, and opened the door to leave.

Logan screwed his eyes shut, wishing for a fleeting and foolish moment that in the blackness he could make this all go away. Of course, being headmaster of the school, Logan could ban Young Warren from setting foot in the library, he could get Hank to delete any records they had on Death Seeds, Archangel, Apocalypse - the whole damn lot. But what would be the point? If Young Warren was this determined to find out what had happened then he wouldn't need library records. Hell, Logan wasn't even sure what information they did have in the library; he didn't recall setting foot in the place ever since Induction Day. That had been Hank's department, and out of respect to his friend, Logan doubted the man would have put anything too detailed about Archangel into the archives.

Still, if Young Warren managed to put two and two together, Logan wouldn't want him running off to anyone else about this.

"Kid," he called, reopening his eyes. Young Warren turned back, looking expectant. "If you do find anything out, promise you'll come to me first."

The boy frowned and Logan could imagine the gears turning in his mind. Wondering why he wouldn't just tell him, why it was so important that he came back, what was so horrible about the truth in the first place. But Logan didn't have the words in him to elaborate, so he just added a bit pathetically, "Please."

 Young Warren flinched. "Sure." Logan could smell the lie as he shut the door behind him. At that moment he probably should have run after the boy to stop him, restrain him, lock him up in his room or something. But that would just add to the long list of unethical things he'd done, and that damn list had got him here in the first place. With a heavy sense of defeat, he exhaled noisily and buried his face in his hands.

He certainly wasn't going to get any sleep tonight, not with the roiling guilt in his gut. Not now all the memories of X-Force that he had tried so hard to shove down and forget were clawing their way back to the surface. He pressed his fingers hard into his forehead and stabbed his thumbs hard into his jaw. He pushed harder and harder, but the pain didn't force the memories out; nothing ever would. God, how he wished for amnesia again!

Dragging his hands down his face, pulling the skin taught, Logan watched the flickering reel of memories in his mind's eye. Blood. There had always been so much blood. And pain too. And of course the hatred; he had given into that like a euphoric drug. Betsy had him all chalked up towards the end, and he still remembered what she had said to him like it was yesterday. _You've given in to the worst of yourself, Logan._ She had been right, of course, and he had dragged four other people down with him.

Damn it all, he couldn't take this!

Stumbling up to his feet, Logan moved to his bedside table, grabbed the whiskey bottle and tore open the seal without thinking twice. The way he saw it, if he was never going to feel good enough to enjoy the stuff then he might as well drown his sorrows in style.

*** *** *** *** ***

Two hours later there was a delicate knock on the door. It was so quiet that Logan thought he imagined it. No, wanted to think he had imagined it. He looked down at the crystal tumbler in his hand, there was little more than a mouthful of golden liquid left in it. He had made his way through most of the bottle, and fought himself constantly not just to down the whole thing and have it over with. Instead he had nursed it, kept himself feeling the tingling buzz, but not drunk quick enough to actually get drunk.

The knock repeated itself, a little louder and a little more insistent. No pretending he had imagined that one. Closing his eyes and sighing, Logan tipped the last of his whiskey down his throat. It burnt there pleasantly as he set the glass down and went over to the door. Standing up proved he was a bit more light-headed than expected, but he expected the healing factor would take care of that soon enough. Then he'd be in for the hangover.

He opened the door a crack and looked out. Young Warren was standing there with an expression on his face that Logan felt was hard to read. Either that or he actually had gone and got himself drunk.

"C'min," he muttered, and opened the door wide for the boy to enter. Young Warren hesitated only for a moment then strode through.

"It stinks in here," he commented, nose wrinkling. His gaze found the near empty bottle on the night stand. "Have you been drinking?" He turned back to Logan with an obvious disapproving look.

Logan simply glared back. It had been the damn kid who had put him onto the bottle in the first place. He was almost tempted to say that out loud, just out of spite, but he knew it wouldn't be fair. The much safer thing to do would be to deflect him entirely, so as much as he hated to be the one to bring it up first, he said, "Find out what you wanted?" His tone was much sharper and more savage than he'd meant.

"I don't want to talk about this if you're drunk," Young Warren said scathingly.  

Logan scowled and shut the door behind him. "Then wait for about ten seconds and you'll be good to go."

Young Warren frowned and gave an unimpressed huff. However, he said no more on the topic and looked away with a contemplative look on his face. Logan figured he was working out what to say. Where to start. He wished so badly that they were on opposite sides of the room; the fuzzy, tingling edge of the whiskey was wearing off and a stabbing headache was taking its place.

"I found out what a Death Seed is," Warren finally spoke. He didn't look at Logan, but instead found great interest in the carved detail on the wardrobe in the corner of the room.

"Yeah?" Logan croaked, wondering why on earth he was encouraging the damn boy.

"This guy... Apocalypse - one of the bad guys - he uses them to make mutants into his servants. Um, Horsemen. They kill the person, forcing a new persona into their place. Death, Famine, War and Pestilence."

 _Good work kid, I should give you an A._ Logan thought bitterly, but didn't feel cruel enough to say it out loud. This was the boy's future, a horrible, messy future, and he had found out from a history book. Nothing was right about that.   

"There was no mention of Life Seeds, though," Young Warren continued numbly. Logan held his breath. Something about the slump in the boy's shoulders and the tone in his voice told him that the boy hadn't relented just because of that. "So I read a load more, until I had enough facts to pull together a theory."

Logan swallowed, his mouth was incredibly dry and he couldn't decide if that was the hangover or the fear.

"You said that a Life Seed is the opposite to a Death Seed, so if the Death Seed removes a persona then a Life Seed must put it back," Young Warren stated. He sounded almost as if he was reciting something in a lesson, except there was a wobble in his voice that betrayed him. Logan wanted to kick himself, tear his hair out of his head, do something to punish himself for being such an idiot. He had thought he was being purposefully obtuse, he hadn't meant what he said to be a fucking clue.

"Jean reckoned that a Life Seed made me into... into that," the boy sighed. "Into who I am today. So if a Life Seed was used on me, then that means a Death Seed must have been too. I was - I _will_ be a Horseman."

Well, so far he had hit the nail on the head. Logan was rapidly losing hope that he could keep anything a secret. He thought about bringing back the poker face and somehow finding a way to worm his way out of the situation. Although how the fuck he thought he could achieve that was beyond him.

"But if a Life Seed really does replace the personality then it went wrong, didn't it?" Warren looked up at him. Logan froze like a deer in headlights, he didn't have the poker face on yet, he was an open book. "You were the one who used it on me, that's why I had to ask you about it. You were the first to see that it didn't work."

Logan steeled himself and nodded. It was close enough to the truth, and the boy certainly didn't need to find out that it had actually been his lover, Betsy to do the deed. He didn't need to know anything about her, not for at least ten years. 

"There's something more than that, though!" Young Warren said in exasperation. "You wouldn't all look at me like you do if it was just because the Life Seed went wrong. Something must've happened when I was a Horseman, something bad. Really bad."

"You weren't yourself," Logan forced out. He wanted to say more, to spill out the whole story, because the way the boy looked, it was as if he thought it was all his own fault.

"Did I kill people?" Young Warren looked at him with those big round baby-blue eyes, glazing over with tears and Logan knew he couldn't lie to that face. But he sure as hell wasn't going to tell the truth either.

"Did I?" Young Warren pressed.

Logan pulled a pained expression.

"How many?"

God, he was so bad at this! He'd been a secret agent before, a spy for Christ's sake! And he couldn't lie to a teenage boy about a future that at this rate may or may not even happen. What was wrong with him? He shook his head. He knew what was wrong, he knew it was his fault, and a vicious little part of him wanted to put him through this, wanted to torture him.

"How many?" Young Warren persisted. What a damn fine accomplice to Logan's guilt he was.

"You don't wanna know," he answered huskily, falling back to lean against the door. His legs had just about given up on him. Thinking about the whole town Archangel had turned to dust, thinking about all the Purifiers, all the enemies they had killed together, how could he possibly put together a number?

Young Warren nodded, most likely decided that he didn't want to know and abruptly sat down cross-legged in the middle of the room. He held his ankles with his hands and his wings curled inwards, almost as if he was trying to hide himself from Logan. Perhaps from the world.

Logan slid his back down the door to reach the same level. If the kid wasn't going to stand anymore then he sure as hell wasn't going to force himself to either.

"I want to go home," the boy said after a long silence. He sounded broken, defeated.

"I want you to go home too," Logan said gently. It was nice to know that at least two of them had their heads screwed on right about this whole mess. A shame it didn't seem to be getting them anywhere.

"The future sucks," Young Warren moped.

Logan surprised himself when he almost laughed. "You're an X-Man, bub. Time-travel is going to be a common theme for you. And believe me when I say this; the future always sucks."

"Hm, great," Young Warren sounded less than enthused. "How do you deal with it? I mean, all of it. This." His voice was still wavering.

"You learn to," Logan shrugged. It was the best answer he could manage.

"Do you... Do you think I could?"

"Sure." In this, Logan could reply confidently. "You're one of the strongest men I know."

Young Warren's wings lifted and opened slightly. Logan could see a whisper of a smile on his lips. "Thanks," the boy whispered. He looked up and took a deep breath in, his frame rising up with it. When he exhaled he didn't sink back down, instead he stood up in one fluid motion.

He walked over and offered Logan a hand to stand up. He accepted it, but didn't actually let the boy take any of his weight, bracing himself on the door instead.

Young Warren gave a wan smile and stared him straight in the eyes. "Thanks for doing what you could to save me," he said. "And sorry to disturb you."

Logan stood stock still as the boy let himself out of the room. He kept on standing there for longer than he could keep track of. It was stupid, really, but after a while he felt the corner of his mouth pull into an almost smile. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that the original five were here. Maybe they would do some good and maybe Young Warren could save himself from his future fate. It was a nice idea at any rate and it was enough to settle a restless mind. When Logan went back to bed it was the best night's sleep he'd had in days.  


End file.
